Ex-senator says raid in Vietnam haunts him

Howard Kurtz, The Washington PostCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska has acknowledged his previously undisclosed role in the killing of more than a dozen Vietnamese civilians, breaking a 32-year silence just days before a critical account was slated for publication.

"I was so ashamed I wanted to die," the Medal of Honor winner told The Wall Street Journal for a story published Wednesday. "This is killing me. I'm tired of people describing me as a hero and holding this inside." He gave a similar account to the Omaha World-Herald.

Kerrey, 57, maintains that his Navy SEAL unit killed the civilians inadvertently after believing they were fired upon in the village of Thanh Phong on Feb. 25, 1969.

Broaching the subject last week in a little-noticed speech at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va., he said his unit acted in self-defense while approaching a suspected Viet Cong post "on a dark and moonless night."

"We returned fire," Kerrey said. "But when the fire stopped, we found that we had killed only women, children and older men. It was not a military victory. It was a tragedy, and I had ordered it. ... I could never make my own peace with what happened that night. I have been haunted by it for 32 years."

One unit member essentially confirmed Kerrey's account to The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Kerrey initiated the two newspaper interviews Tuesday before publication of a New York Times Magazine article that includes a far more chilling account of the 1969 shootings of 13 to 20 unarmed civilians. In that story, posted on the newspaper's Web site Wednesday, a senior commando in Kerrey's Navy SEAL unit, Gerhard Klann, says that at Kerrey's order the unit rounded up and killed unarmed women and children, and that a "baby was the last one alive."

Kerrey denies that the civilians were rounded up and killed.

The unit expended 1,200 rounds of ammunition, according to an after-action report filed by the unit to superior officers. In a Times interview, Kerrey said he could not be absolutely sure that he and his men were fired upon first, as he maintains, saying it could have been "noise."

Career stressed candor

For one of America's most prominent war heroes and a one-time presidential candidate to publicly acknowledge his long-ago role in the killing of innocent civilians--intentional or not--could affect his public image. Throughout his career, Kerrey has presented himself as a candid politician who speaks difficult truths, whether about the long-term solvency of Social Security or the shortcomings of his political opponents.

Kerrey, who is weighing another run for president, never mentioned the incident during his eight years as governor of Nebraska, two Senate terms or his 1992 campaign for the White House. His reputation for battlefield bravery was a prominent theme of his candidacy.

Kerrey received a Bronze Star for the raid in question. The award citation says 21 Viet Cong were killed and enemy weapons were captured or destroyed.

Less than a month later, on March 14, 1969, Kerrey lost part of his right leg when a grenade exploded at his feet. The next year, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military commendation.

Kerry did a round of television interviews Wednesday. CBS aired portions of a "60 Minutes II" story, scheduled for broadcast Tuesday and done in conjunction with the journalist who did the 2 1/2-year investigation for the Times.

"I have never been able to justify what we did, either militarily or certainly not morally," Kerrey said on CNN.

Kerrey denied Klann's account that the civilians were rounded up, telling NBC's Tom Brokaw, "It is entirely possible that all kinds of other memories can come out of that night, but I would remember if we pulled these people ... into a group and killed them at point-blank range, and that did not happen."

In the Times article, Kerrey attacked Klann's credibility, saying he was angry that Kerrey hadn't helped him win a Medal of Honor.

Kerrey version supported

Michael Ambrose, a Houston executive who served with Kerrey, told The Washington Post that Klann's account is "the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. It is untrue in every sense of the word."

Ambrose said the unit advanced on the village based on intelligence about a high-level enemy meeting there, responded to hostile fire and "we were all upset ... Bob was tremendously upset" when "we found only innocent victims, not our target whatsoever." Visibility was "literally zero," he said, and "we were lucky to get out."

The CBS story includes an interview with the wife of a Viet Cong fighter, Pham Tri Lanh, who claims to be an eyewitness. "It was very crowded, so it wasn't possible for them to cut everybody's throats one by one," she said. "Two women came out and kneeled down. They shot these two old women and they fell forward and they rolled over and then they ordered everybody out from the bunker and they lined them up and they shot all of them from behind."

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a Vietnam veteran and friend of the former senator, defended Kerrey in a floor speech.

He urged the media Wednesday not "to engage in some kind of 32-year-later binge because there is a difference of memory about a particularly confusing night in the delta in a free-fire zone under circumstances which most of us who served in Vietnam understood were the daily fare of life in Vietnam."